Leland and Gray High School
2007 and 2008
Taylor as a jailbird in the L&G Players production of: Anything Goes
Taylor was home-schooled but still quite involved at the local high school, Leland and Gray, until he left at age 15 for college. He was a member of the marching and concert bands, the L&G Players drama program, chorus and an acapella group. He was the goalkeeper for the JV Soccer team. He did take a few classes at the school, but mostly languages; there was no way we were able to teach him Mandarin! You can hear him speak to the Chinese students involved with the Journey East program, in the "panda" video below...
🌎 He competed in the school's annual geography challenge: the National Geographic Bee. He was the school champion for both of the years he competed. This meant that he advanced to the statewide competition each time; his second year in this contest, he was crowned the Vermont State Champion. By winning the state, he was awarded a free trip to Washington, D.C. for the national bee. He did not "place" in this contest, but did enjoy getting to meet Bernie Sanders, Patrick Leahy and Peter Welch while on Capitol Hill! And here is Taylor getting Alex Trebek's autograph; he was the host for the final event. 🌎
This video shows part of an interview immediately following his state win; also, Bernie shaking Taylor's hand 🎉
Taylor welcoming the students in their native language!
Also in 2007, he got accepted into the Journey East program, which meant that he would be traveling to China with a group of about 25 students for a month in the spring of 2008. Journey East was a foreign exchange program that had our Vermont high school students designing their own show of music and dance, that they would then perform in China at multiple schools. The "exchange" included Chinese students from the Art College of Inner Mongolia University coming to stay in homes scattered around Townshend, and from those home bases, traveling around Vermont to perform their traditional music and dance show.
This is just one of Taylor's Journey East performance pieces; it is the only one that he did solo. The JE troupe traveled around China for a month, visiting ten or so schools, some primary, some secondary and a few universities. Taylor told stories of the teenagers treating the Americans like rock stars: screaming after their performances, rushing the stage, even chasing them out to their tour bus one time! Quite an experience...
< Here's a tip to better understand his introduction in this video: his girlfriend's last name was 'Soule.'
